A WILD RIDE

After I returned from Korea and was at Ream Field in '52, I was scheduled for a morning flight in an HO3S. I met the pilot at the "chopper", said "good morning sir and where are we going?" His answer was a mumbled Brown Field. I thought to my self "oh shit - more auto-rotations" and crawled into the back seat. He cranked the plane up, got a thumbs up from the plane captain, and lifted off the ground. Instead of going down past the tower he did a 180 and flew off the other direction. About then I noticed his head-set was still on the floor, and he had taken off without contacting the tower. He reached over and slid his door shut, and then the inside of the plane suddenly smelled like a booze factory. Knowing he should have his head-set on, I tapped his shoulder and handed him the earphones. He locked the "collective", and fumbled around until I grabbed the heatset and firmly clamped it on both his ears. Arriving at the field he didn't climb to altitude for auto-rotation, instead he came in low and set us down with a big thump. Bringing the engine down to idle, he applied the rotor brake, stopped the blades and walked some 50 feet away looking at the ground. I thought he was going to "puke", but a few minutes later he lite a smoke, stood there, and eventually got back in our machine without saying a word. The flight back to Ream Field was uneventful, and I bailed out with out so much as "thank you sir for a good flight". From then on before every "hop" I took I looked my pilot in the face from a short distance, to see if he was hung-over more than I was. I survived Korea, why die now ???

Doug Froling